


For whom the bell tolls

by GeoApo



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:06:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3492872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeoApo/pseuds/GeoApo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a mission Root comes face to face with Shaw who obviously is neither dead nor captured (and NOT brainwashed). </p><p>Set six months after 'If_Then_Else'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Sameen?!”

She felt everything around her falling apart in a split second, metaphorically and literally. The explosion John had created was enough to make her ears –actually ear- ring, but the bells she was now hearing had nothing to do with that. 

They weren’t bells of fear like those that toll for a man on his way to the gallows or the kind of bells a healthy man hears when a leprous approaches; they were bells of surprise and relief. It was like she had aged rapidly and then took back all of her lost years at once.  
They were bells of sacrifice and betrayal. 

Shaw looked at her blankly, holding a gun that was pointing at her just like that time in an empty warehouse where she had gifted her this precious scar on the right shoulder. The history was repeating itself; this ghost that for six months was haunting her dreams was now standing before her, more alive and hostile than ever before, threatening her with a loaded .45 as if she had forgotten everything they went through together. 

She hadn’t forgotten though, Root could see it in her eyes, these cold eyes that once made her melt just by looking at her, they were all there, all the memories that were wiping her mind day and night, they were there, displayed on Shaw’s dark eyes. 

She didn’t get the chance to utter anything else, every little thing she wanted to express, every word she had prepared to say at this moment, stopped in her throat and occluded it when the bullet penetrated her left shoulder.

Tears clouded her eyes and she never understood if it was due to the pain from the gunshot wound or the feelings she was ghettoizing all this time and now felt like they were imploding, leaving behind nothing more than a black hole. 

Still, the emptiness that was filling her inside didn’t seem to attract this specific person, as though the laws of nature didn’t apply to Shaw, besides she had died more than once and was still here, indomitable and very much alive.

“Go”, her voice was the same, cold and dismissive. 

But Root couldn’t move, the forces of attraction between them were so strong that overcame her instinct to run away and more importantly the necessity to get as far away as possible from this woman; a necessity that the scars on both of her shoulders betrayed. 

However, it wasn’t the wound on her shoulder that put her in a car and drove away before Samaritan’s agents appear and open fire against them. It was John the one who saved her and moved her away from that malevolent ghost of the past–her death- even if it was against her will. 

“Please tell me that you saw her too” Her eyes oscillated between the increasingly faint figure of the woman she once knew and John who was driving beside her, a pleading look that she had never given to anyone before. 

John didn’t avert his eyes from the road. He was as staggered as she was, even without a bullet in his shoulder to confirm the obvious. This wasn’t the first time Root saw Shaw alive; it was the first time though that the face she was seeing didn’t transmute into a different one the very next second.

“Yes, this time it was Shaw”, even John couldn’t believe what he just uttered. During many missions in the past months he had to restore Root to the unremitting reality, it was he who had to tell her that what she was witnessing was just a trick of the mind, a delusion, and every time it was him that she faced with hatred for letting Shaw die for the millionth time in her head. 

But now that it wasn’t just an illusion, the good news he was announcing left a bitter taste in his mouth. In the past six months they were all convinced of her death –some of them more than others- or the possibility that she was rotting in a dungeon somewhere in Samaritan facilities, but none of them expected this.

Root exhaled loudly as though all these months she was saving her breath for this moment and only now that it finally came she allowed herself to breathe again. Because this moment she didn’t care about the betrayal or the pain in her shoulder, this moment Shaw was alive, breathing somewhere back there, devouring an insalubrious sandwich, shooting some shoulders –even if hers was included-.This thought was the only thing that overwhelmed her senses right now. 

~

Shaw keyed in the code and the vending machine revealed the way to the underground station; it felt like yesterday. She could remember this series of numbers like her own name, she was replaying it in her mind all this time like a song, old and familiar, that evoked memories of a family and a warm home that she never had. Not that she ever felt the need for any of those, but the station she was now entering and had missed more than she could understand emitted this redolence of intimacy and certitude, and the people in there were the closest to family she had ever been, even if she had estranged them for too long. 

The cave was still the same, dark and bigger than the requisite. Nevertheless everything felt different, especially John’s look when they came face to face, a gun instinctively pointing at her and a pair of eyes provoking her to vindicate herself. 

“It’s good to see you too John”

Hearing her voice Harold turned around from his seat in time less than a split second and bewildered faced the woman who just wouldn’t die. 

“Ms Shaw? What…?”

Shaw forced a smile before letting her eyes wander briefly around the station and eventually returning to John motioning him to lower his gun. 

Much to her disappointment Root was nowhere to be found and a hidden fear emerged from the dark chambers of her mind that she exorcised immediately before she would lose control. She had shot her in the shoulder; carefully she managed to leave behind only an open wound and nothing risky or permanent, except for the scar that created a perfect symmetry on her body –not that a symmetry was needed to reach perfection this body that she had missed much more than she would ever admit.

John hesitantly lowered his gun and approached her scanning every unaltered inch of her face in the process. 

“All this time, you were alive and working for Samaritan?!”

John always had a tendency to point out the obvious but this time however familiar was the situation she couldn’t deny how much it got her to hear it from him with a voice more broken than ever before. 

In the meantime Harold had come closer and was warily observing her. The scenario analysis was running in the background of his mind but all of the possible developments included words like betrayal and abandonment; words that he was too afraid to admit.

“They offered me a job while I was recovering and whether you believe it or not Samaritan is not as evil as we thought it is. I’m saving people.”

“WE are saving people” Harold snapped, unfairly though. After Shaw’s cover identity had been compromised she was like a dormant volcano, quiescent but ready to blast at any time. This woman had always been a mystery to him; she didn’t care about anyone and yet had this sublime tension to save lives as if they mattered, a tension that they had contained in a subway station for too long. 

“My cover had been blown, I was useless here”, Shaw’s voice was calm and full of confidence; she knew she had done the right thing and hadn’t regretted it. 

Harold’s features softened, he had seen the good in Samaritan and had no doubt that Shaw could distinguish between black and white, besides only with these colors she lived her life. 

John, though, wasn’t convinced yet, “We thought you were dead. Couldn’t you just call?”

“When I recovered from the injuries you had already stopped looking for me. There was no reason to appear; you moved on, I should do the same.”

“No reason? What the hell Shaw? We raised hell to find you. Root…”

The sentence was cut off short, John had no intention to start on about Root’s state after the stock exchange and Shaw couldn’t help but wonder why.

“I know and I’m grateful” Her eyes roamed again around the station hoping to meet a certain brunette that was nowhere to be found, neither she nor Bear; two of her favorites.

“Where is Root?”

“I patched her up and she went back to the safe house. Great shot by the way” John’s sarcastic tone was not at all indistinguishable but it lacked in the deprecation that he had been directing to Shaw since she showed up. 

Shaw’s reply never came, she only looked at them for one last time and nodded ready to leave until Harold’s voice riveted her. 

“Regarding miss Groves,” he sounded reluctant, as if he was about to reveal the secrets of the universe, “maybe you should consider visiting her.”

Shaw averted her eyes, it was the first time in this conversation that she looked like she wasn’t sure about something, maybe a little repentant too. “I don’t know what to tell her.”

“I don’t believe she expects you to say anything. Maybe she just needs to see you.”

Shaw gave some thought to it for a moment. She didn’t know how to face someone who had brought hell on earth to find her, while she was going on missions ordered by their enemy. And maybe she was still terrified of Root’s screams that was haunting her nights since that day. She hadn’t forgotten them -perhaps she would never do- they were ringing in her head like bells denoting the impending death that she never feared. 

A simple ‘ok’ escaped her lips and she instantly regretted it. Before taking it back though, John spoke for one last time. “Just be patient, Root is a little different since the day you died.”

_Different?!_


	2. Chapter 2-Part 1

She stood before the door for a moment oscillating between knocking and opening with the key she had kept and was carrying like a talisman. It was the only reminder of her previous life, the only evidence that she once had a home, even if it was just a safe house only used as shelter in critical moments. 

And with that reminiscent she decided. She would not enter like a stranger, not here. It was enough the alienation that she received from Harold and John, hell even the cave felt like narrowing and suffocating her as though she couldn’t hold her any longer. 

And maybe, eventually, they sustained in a way her turnaround and maybe at the end the subway seemed a little bigger and warmer than before, but she was terrified of Root’s response. At this point even bear’s reaction disquieted her.

The key slid into the lock and she felt something clenching her stomach, she wasn’t wired for that kind of stuff, she didn’t know what to say, what to do -and maybe that was the main reason she wouldn’t return after her recovery, she couldn’t face this person that was now emerging from the increasing gap between the door and the door frame. 

This incredibly expressive face that could say everything without the need to open its mouth –in the end though not even this mouth would stop talking- was now looking at her calmly, as if she was meeting with someone acquainted in a social visit that she might have expected and might not. 

She was standing next to the couch, her shirt torn in the spot she’d been shot, a bandage emerging from the tear and a part of exposed skin that made Shaw shudder while all the times she’d kissed and bitten that shoulder passed before her eyes in a split second. 

They stood like that for a while, as far as they had never been before, just staring at each other in a relentless competition of silence that neither had the intention to break. Root because she was trying to put in order the chaos inside of her and Shaw because the order she had in her life became chaos just by looking at Root. 

And although Shaw had stayed pretty much the same during these six months, Root had truly changed. Shaw could easily discern the sorrow in her eyes, the lack of the gleam they used to have, the weariness they oozed, as if every month in her life equaled a whole year. What really frightened her, though, wasn’t the glassy expression or the dark gaze, it was her silence. This woman that could never stop talking had nothing to say now.

It was like all the innuendos died that day with Shaw and maybe with Root too. 

Eventually, the competition was interrupted by fast paced footsteps, too light to belong to a person and too heavy to be a small animal, causing Shaw for the first time since she set foot in the safe house to avert her eyes from Root.

 _Finally someone who’s glad to see me,_ she thought when Bear charged, flooring her and licking her face with such elation that only the tail that was whipping the air was enough to reveal. 

“Hey buddy” Her hands slipped through the hard fur and for the first time since the day she ‘died’ –again- she felt warm, like she finally belonged somewhere, as if she’d never experienced solitude or death.

As soon as she broke free from Bear’s weight over her body and stood up, her eyes returned to Root, who for the first time resembled her old self. The light in her eyes had come back, darker than ever before, but it was there. And maybe it was due to the tears that were ready to evacuate her eyes, but Shaw couldn’t tell, she would never know because they never fell.

All of a sudden the silence started suffocating her and while all the other days Shaw would pray for the quiet –especially when it came to Root- today felt like a wet tower on her face.

So she caved and spoke first, “I should have a look at this” she signed with her head at the wound she herself had inflicted upon Root, who didn’t convey any sign of agreement and as a matter of fact not declination either. She had locked her eyes with Shaw’s and stayed there, still and deadpan, expecting from the ghost to finally approach or leave. 

Shaw hesitated for a moment and then neared with a confidence she didn’t know she had, at least not now that two big brown eyes were fixing her to a cross of betrayal, abandonment or hatred. She couldn’t discern which one it was and in the end she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to know.

When the distance between them markedly decreased, Shaw’s eyes locked on the injured shoulder not being able to look the taller woman in the eyes, not from that close, not with that deafening silence in the background. Haltingly, she reached out and removed the bandage John had applied, feeling from above Root’s stare whipping her face. 

And it was this moment, this light and accidental touch on a shoulder that provoked the chain reaction, like a spark in an oil refinery, like the first drop of a cataclysm or the first shot in a battlefield. 

Before Shaw could even realize the frisson of Root’s skin she felt lips crashing against hers. A kiss rough and intense, a kiss she had not received before, not from Root, not from anyone else. It lacked the ardor that defined their previous kisses, but it had desperation and need and devastation. It had retribution and remission. It had thirst that could drown you and a commitment that set you free. 

Shaw’s eyes fluttered closed when she finally realized what was happening. Root though kept them fixated on Shaw, she couldn’t permit herself to lose sight of her, she couldn’t bear to lose her again, couldn’t handle it this time. 

When their tongues met, it was only for a moment, they fought and then separated like two worlds that weren’t meant to coexist, yet something always drew them together and once they hurt each other they parted again, each one left with the memory of the other and a lost piece of themselves replaced by a strange and familiar one concurrently.

As soon as Shaw broke the kiss –only to confirm that the woman she was kissing was Root- realized that all this time there was a hand wrapped around her neck that was clasping without quite strangling it. 

Before Shaw could utter a word Root pushed her hard against the wall, ignoring the sound of her head against the bricks, and begun a new round of war that someone could call kissing. 

Instinctively, Shaw’s hands came to rest on Root’s hips, only to grab them by the wrists strong hands, rougher than she remembered them –or maybe it was just her impression- and push them both against the wall above her head. 

She couldn’t tell where did all this power of the other woman come from but she found herself unable to break loose, so for the first time in her life she yielded to the pressure and reciprocated the lust in her kiss. 

And when the passion overcame her and she finally realized how much she had missed this woman, this scent and touch, she couldn’t take what she really wanted –needed- now. Root broke the kiss momentarily and while locking her cold eyes with Shaw’s she spoke for the first time since their first encounter that day. 

“Do you know what I’ve done for you?” Her voice was tremendously calm and different, as if its frequency had permanently decreased.

When she didn’t receive a response she slipped her free hand into Shaw’s pants and asked again. 

“Do you?”

A shiver ran through Shaw as she tensed up under the familiar touch between her legs, but she remained silent, eyes glued to Root’s as though they were challenging her to make a move and although she wouldn’t allow Root to break her and extract a reply, she was definitely free to try. 

Shaw expected a punch, a diatribe or at the very least a strike with a taser, everything was possible and at this point welcome. 

She didn’t expect though the finger that was furiously pushed inside of her. She wasn’t wet enough and the friction on her labia made her slightly curl up. 

Root’s finger was familiar and very much allowed to reach its goal, but since it found its place in Shaw’s hot and now very wet center it didn’t move again; it stayed there making its presence perceptible and nothing more. 

Root kept looking at her intensely, with something masking her face that Shaw couldn’t exactly name, she had never seen it before, until Root spoke again, this time it was anger what characterized her voice.

“I tortured for you”, when the ‘you’ left her lips one more finger joined the other and Shaw made a sound like a moan that if Root wasn’t so close she wouldn’t have heard it.  
But now she did. And at any other time this audio confirmation of Shaw’s arousal would have brought a smile on Root’s lips, not this time though. This time there was nothing there, only pain and loss. 

Root’s fingers started a steadily slow movement up and down, sliding easily along Shaw’s labia and every so often brushing up against her clitoris without quite putting pressure on it. 

It wasn’t meant to offer pleasure, it was torture and Shaw knew it pretty well. 

Their lips momentarily crashed together until Root separated them again leaving Shaw leaning forward in need of one more physical touch beyond the extremely enjoyable sensation between her legs. 

And maybe she could turn the tables, grab Root by the waist, push her against the wall and force her to pick up the pace, but she didn’t. The truth’s that this silence scared her more than she would ever admit. She owed her the submittal; to allow Root to play with her as she pleased, to hit her, torment her. After all, she deserved it. 

“I killed for you.” Root whispered while the pace of her quivering fingers increased rapidly, never being adequate and neither inadequate. This time a thumb began a sweeping movement against Shaw’s clit triggering an infinitesimal but perceptible electrical current to pass through her spine making her eyes lose focus and flutter closed.

Root snapped and immediately ceased whatever movement her curled fingers had started. “Look at me.”

Shaw’s eyes burst open, mainly because of the shutoff and secondarily due to the coldness of Root’s tone.

“I begged for you.” It was more of an accusation than a statement. It was confession and concealment. 

It was also the sparking of a vibration between Shaw’s legs, rapid and combined with so much pressure on her clitoris that only that was enough to lead her to an explosive orgasm, which came afterwards, when Root’s free hand looped around her neck and clenched it making this simple habit that she had since the day she was born more difficult than ever before. 

Shaw attempted to break free from the tight hold around her neck, but then her orgasm started building up so hard and so breathlessly that the exigent need for oxygen stopped being primary. 

Instantly, her legs bent unable to hold her weight as if the gravitational field strengthened forthwith, only for her. She didn’t collapse though, strong hands kept her up against the wall until they were pulled back leaving her curled up coughing and desperately struggling for some air.

And there, between the cough and the sound of a ringing bell inside her head she heard a soft whisper, so soft that she could have imagined it. 

_“I died for you”_


	3. Chapter 2-Part 2

Before Shaw could process the words that came out of Root’s mouth the other woman withdrew her hands and turned around walking towards the small coffee table where a small first aid kit was placed. The wound on her shoulder, a painful reminder of a betrayal, had started bleeding all over again just like the first time and however pressure she was putting on it the heart wouldn’t stop sending an increasing amount of blood with a pace she couldn’t control.

Without facing Shaw, who was still leaning against the wall trying to collect herself, she removed the bloody bandages and tried to clean up the mess. Which mess though, was debatable, because she was pretty sure that her shoulder was in a much better condition than her head. 

Her vision was blurry and the tension to collapse was becoming more and more impossible to overcome, but none of them mattered when two strong hands came to rest on her waist making her shiver just like the first time this woman touched her this way. 

Her eyes betrayed her and instantly closed allowing only one sense to remain and be maximized. A sensation that she craved for months overwhelmed her and for fear of caving she turned around causing Shaw’s hands to fall, the ruthlessly cold mask still on her face.

“Allow me” Shaw brought her hand excessively close to Root’s shoulder but didn’t touch it until an affirmative nod was received. She carefully pressed a clean bandage on the wound while her other hand was keeping the shoulder in place from behind and waited a couple of moments.

Once the bleeding stopped Shaw’s gaze finally turned to Root, the eyes behind the flinty mask were closed and only then Shaw realized that the other woman was shaking.

“I know.” Her voice came out calmer and softer than she expected making Root’s eyes flutter open and lock with hers, a look full of puzzlement. _Finally,_ her face started producing small signs that confirmed that this body still contained a soul, even if it was signs of anger or bewilderment. 

“I know what you did for me.” Shaw turned her attention again to the bullet wound, a frustrated attempt to avoid the piercing stare of the taller woman who kept trying to apprehend what these words meant. 

“You were being reckless” Shaw continued as she dressed the wound “and foolish.”

No one spoke until Shaw's work was done when eventually she had to look up at that angry and cold face that condemned her before she could even explain herself. When the eye contact was made, though, the hostile look she was waiting for had been replaced by an inquisitive one. 

And there, in this moment she could discern something old and familiar, something worth fighting for.

“What are you talking about?” Root’s reaction was the first Shaw correctly predicted and perhaps the first one that wasn’t preset, as if it hadn’t been calculated or replayed in her mind a million times. 

Because there were other reactions that Root had simulated with accuracy in each word, each stress and pause. And for every different scripted scenario she had created a choreography; what she’d do, what she’d say and when, and even this particular scenario –Shaw working for Samaritan- already existed as an option in her mind and until now she had followed it to the letter.

There were others, such as Shaw returning with wounds all over her body -in this case she had prepared a series of innuendos about how perfect her body still was- or being rescued from a dark dungeon or -her favorite and most absurd- returning with her emotions maximized. In this scenario she would hug her just like she had imagined it a million times and say everything she ever wanted but couldn't, she would make love to her as they had never done before and then she’d hold her tight all night long and never let her go again. 

And yet, there was one possible scenario that she couldn’t bear to consider. That one in which Shaw’s dead; there was no action plan in this case.

But now Shaw diverted her from the procedure that had already been prepared and she didn’t know how to react. The improvisation was excluded for fear of snapping and allowing all the emotions she had kept well hidden inside to emerge and reveal the darkness of her heart. 

Shaw seemed like she didn’t want to continue the conversation but they were already so close and these big bright eyes were looking at her so intensely and finally so familiarly that she couldn’t break eye contact and definitely neither the physical one. 

“Do you really think that when you were breaking into Samaritan facilities like a kamikaze there wasn’t someone ready to snipe at you?”

Root narrowed her eyes but didn’t respond. It was a rhetorical question but at this point whatever the question was Root wouldn’t reply, maybe not because she hadn’t planned her reaction in this particular scenario but mainly due to the unbelievable course this conversation had taken.

Shaw, encouraged by the lack of a response, continued; angrier this time. “Or did you believe that all those explosions that allowed you to escape every time Samaritan agents cornered you were random?”

Root slowly began showing signs of understanding. During many missions in the past months several random occurrences happened that favored their position even in situations that certain death was expected. Even John used to mock her for _carrying a guardian angel_ but she knew it was just the Machine. _It had to be the Machine!_

“All this time you had my back?” Reality collapsed onto her head and then left her alone, without a plan of action, to face Shaw with weapons she did not possess anymore. The innuendos and the bad lines had abandoned her a long time ago and their place had taken a naked truth that she couldn’t even utter to herself. A truth that Shaw didn’t want to–or couldn’t- hear. It was a truth full of pain and loss and _love._

«You just have to be more careful» Shaw’s answer was an evasion, a phrase to avoid the talk; it wasn’t though what ended the conversation. This task was completed by her hand that starting from Root’s shoulder ran up and down along her neck and eventually paused, a thumb caressing softly the pale skin above the intensely pulsating carotid artery.

Root’s eyes closed by instinct and she didn’t see the lips that approached hers. But she felt them and it was like all the fundamental forces merged into a single one inside of her, obliterating every trace of pluralism or dualism, as if all her broken pieces from that day coalesced into a whole that never broke. 

The kiss was soft and hot. Hotter than every other kiss they’ve shared and so changed as changed they were, not at all and completely. 

The next moment Root felt Shaw’s hand slipping under her shirt as though it belonged there, claiming the burning skin and causing groans that she tried -but failed- to suppress.

Shaw was alive and she was there, with her, touching and kissing her just like every time that she failed to get used to and it was this moment, when she wrapped her legs around Shaw’s waist and let her body at her command to do with it –or to it-whatever she pleased, that she realized how broken she was, how she couldn’t collect her pieces any longer and a tear fell off her sealed eyes. 

Shaw tasted the salt in their kiss and, while carrying her to the bedroom, immediately tightened her hold before resting her carefully on the bed. It was a gesture so soft and affectionate as she had never been in her life, surprising not only Root but also herself.

When she attempted to remove Root’s shirt the lying down woman grabbed her hand from the wrist and pushed it away, the look on her face had something indefinable and vague, just like that time before the Machine when she was only a hired killer. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Shaw whispered but it sounded like a deafening noise that left behind nothing but an echo so pervasive as Root’s silence. 

Root looked like she didn’t know the answer, as if she wasn’t sure of what she wanted anymore, maybe she had stopped wanting.

Shaw made a move to climb off of her until a delayed answer came, more ambiguous than ever.   
“What do you want from me?” Root’s voice was pleading and almost apologetic, eyes still closed. 

But Shaw was already on her feet ready to leave when the unanswered question was raised and left swinging like a sharp pendulum approaching their bodies.

It was this question though that didn’t require words, but acts. And they succeeded it. 

Shaw patiently took off her clothes one by one until she was naked in front of a lying down Root that if there wasn’t the not so indistinguishable tremor of her body she might seem like sleeping. Only when she felt a hand removing gently her bloodstained shirt she reacted but didn’t obstruct Shaw from pulling off the rest of her clothes. And although she didn't object, she stayed still, without even making a move to help, as long as the undressing lasted. 

They stayed there for a couple of moments, Shaw’s eyes glued to Root’s nudity, until the decision was made and slowly got up on her, every part of her body pushed against Root’s equivalent. 

She felt hard nipples against hers, a hot abdomen touching her own, limbs tangled up and two short breaths mixed. 

“I want you to feel me.” Shaw whispered in Root’s ear while her hands were wandering along the quivering body beneath her.

Root’s eyes burst open, faces inches away from each other, but kept still, absorbing Shaw’s heat like it was sacred. 

“I want you to feel my presence,” the hot air that exited her mouth caressed Root’s ear making her shudder. 

“my intact mortality,” Shaw moved her leg between Root’s parted and lifted it slightly until her knee was touching the center of the other woman. A moan was heard but she couldn’t be sure, so she continued. 

“my touch,” he hands were everywhere and nowhere. They started from Root’s face and began travelling down until they paused at her inner thighs. Another movement wasn’t made though, besides a soft brush over her pectineus that tended to approach her center but never quite reaching it.

Shaw’s head turned to face Root –Root, who all this time was shaking trying to obstruct herself from bursting-, “my kiss,” she brushed their lips together and stayed there for a moment. It wasn’t a kiss; it was another confirmation of her presence, another part of her that touched Root.

But it was also the part that closed the circuit provoking the electrical current to pass through their mouths to her body. It was a variation in a direct line of a cardiogram. It was a realization. It was everything and nothing. Now or never. 

It took only one second for Root to decide. 

Eventually, it was _everything_ and _now._ She couldn’t have it any other way; otherwise she would regret it for the rest of her short life. 

Her hands automatically and desperately grabbed the back of Shaw’s neck and with the least possible force pulled her close to claim her lips for one more kiss. 

It had desperation and need, it had a flame that could turn them into ashes and then reanimate them, but it lacked effectiveness. As much as Root’s lips imposed upon Shaw’s, as much as her tongue wandered around the familiar area, as much as her fingernails striped and caressed at once Shaw’s back, Root couldn’t help but continue envisaging like in a movie Shaw lying on the ground in a pool of blood, a truck full of surgical tools, a stranger rescued in Shaw’s place and blood. Blood everywhere. 

She couldn’t separate the truth from the lie anymore. The delusion from reality.

There was a ghost of her past hovering over her body, a ghost very similar to the love of her life, but she was dead, deep down she had faced it a long time ago even though she never admitted it. 

And this ghost was now kissing her so familiar and soft, everywhere. It was everywhere.

Only a ghost _–and her-_ could do that; kiss her everywhere, suck her nipples and the very next moment slide down there, where _she_ had once gone, lick her clit just like _she_ had so many times before, easily slip two fingers inside of her and find her so wet as she was only for _her._ Tease her just like _her,_ give her everything she needed but not for too long, curl her fingers and channel a current along her spine like the way _she_ did. 

The ghost’s pace though was different, slower, its touches were softer, the kisses more affectionate. 

It was making love to her like _she_ had never done!

But before Root could perceive the inconsistency of Shaw’s actions her orgasm arose like a deus ex machine to dispel the clouds that were created inside her head. She came madly and sweet with a name escaping her lips; a name she had not uttered for ages, a name prayer and curse at once. Loss and love, everything in one name. 

_Sameen_


	4. Chapter 4

_Sameen_

And it was this name that preceded a kiss. A confirmation of the passion that was finally decompressed and turned loose to overwhelm Root’s senses, mind, heart…

“You are alive.” It wasn’t a statement, nor a question. It was realization.

Shaw smiled and it seemed like a heavenly dream, “I could say the same for you”

When she made a move to pull out her fingers Root instantly grabbed her by the wrist, obstructing every intention she had of breaking the physical contact. Shaw tentatively looked at the face beneath her own and saw that smile that she had held for so long at the back of her mind and was carrying like a talisman and simultaneously a ball and chain. 

“Just a little longer” Root’s voice was different, even more pleading but also challenging. 

Shaw kept her fingers where they belonged applying soft brushes along Root’s still wet labia, only to make their presence perceptible and nothing more, her palm cupping Root’s mound and her whole body covering her. 

They stayed there for a couple of moments, stuck together like a single body staring at each other’s eyes while their minds were still trapped in the physical contact between Root’s legs, until Shaw broke it withdrawing slowly her fingers and climbing off of Root. 

She dropped her body on the bed next to Root and stayed there for some time, gaze fixated at the ceiling. She didn’t turn to face the woman beside her until she felt the shift of the mattress and the next second saw with the corner of her eye Root turned to the side, watching her with a gaze she had seen before. 

It was before the stock exchange, it was this stare that pinned her to the bed after a grueling intercourse and obstructed her from leaving. It could always keep her there, even if she never was the cuddling type, this look had something indefinable, something she couldn’t resist.

So Shaw always stayed, even though they never touched, even though she always fell asleep first, even though she never knew what Root was doing while she was sleeping, as long as she crashed and woke up with a gap of air between their bodies.

But this time only a look wasn’t enough to keep her from leaving, she needed something else. Something more. And it came almost instantly, a whisper in the dark.

“Please, just for one night” _because it might be the last._

Root didn’t have to finish her sentence, she knew Shaw would understand. Shaw always understood even when they didn’t say anything. 

Tomorrow they would be enemies again, tomorrow someone might die, tomorrow Shaw might not aim at a shoulder and after tomorrow they might not see each other again. But tonight they were here, lying in bed, together, alive, and they were neither friends nor enemies. They were lovers and nothing more. 

And it was enough for Root. Because tonight she had Shaw by her side even if she couldn’t touch her, even if she couldn’t say everything she wanted to say, she had her there –alive- listening to her breath like something sacred, being overwhelmed by her distinctive smell, watching her just like each and every night of those that she managed to persuade her to stay.

These nights were her Eden. She wouldn’t allow herself to sleep. She waited and waited and waited. Until Shaw fell asleep and only then she would bring her hand to Shaw’s exposed abdomen and rest it there till morning. Then she would wake up earlier than Shaw and withdraw it unwillingly. And this was enough. She never asked for more and never took more. 

Shaw sighed before a surrendering ‘Okay’ evaded her lips and closed her eyes.

Root smiled and it was the first genuine smile she had given since that _damned_ day. It felt like salvation, but better. It was eudemonia. It was the highest type of happiness and had nothing to do with virtue or ethics. They had gotten it all wrong; Plato, Epicurus, Aristotle, Socrates, all these philosophers that she used to read when she was confined in that library, they were all wrong.

Eudemonia was this moment, this person beside her, her demon and her guardian angel concurrently and nothing else. Everything else was noise; parasites. 

 

A couple of minutes had passed when a dark thought barged in and roughed her mind up making the process of breathing even more difficult until she couldn’t master anymore the words that came out of her mouth the very next moment.

“Sameen?”

Shaw kept her eyes closed but allowed a groan that could easily be interpreted as an annoyed ‘what’.

“When the time comes and you’ll have to make a decision, whose side will you take?”

Much as Root feared the answer to her question, she wanted to know if it’ll be Shaw the one to end her. For when they come up against each other this would be the only outcome, not because Shaw’s better trained or skilled, but because Root would never aim a gun at her, let alone kill her.

Shaw didn’t reply; she stayed lying down beside Root, silent and skeptical. It seemed like she was thinking about an answer that eventually never came. Or at least it wasn’t the one that Root expected.

“Get some sleep”

But Root didn’t obey. She stayed there all night, observing the naked woman beside her, listening to her breath like a bird’s song in spring, absorbing her image and loving her in the only way she knew and was allowed. She didn’t touch her, being near her was enough and she wouldn’t risk it, couldn’t bear to lose it tonight. 

And maybe during the night she extended her hand towards Shaw’s exposed back but she never lowered it, she left it there, hovering over for a couple of moments, just to feel the heat that was emitted and then withdrew it rapidly as if it burned. 

Until the day succeeded to the night and the first ray of light pervaded the room caressing Shaw’s naked body as if the sun rose today only for her and Root envied it as she had never envied anyone. 

Shaw slowly began waking up and before her eyes open Root’s rapidly shut making her look like she was sleeping, like she didn’t stay awake all night long caressing Shaw’s body with her eyes. 

Root felt a shift on the bed, a weight being removed from it, and the next moment a wave of cold inundated her senses. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t watch her leaving, couldn’t say goodbye. She would yield and beg and she would receive that contemptuous look that she couldn’t take, because it might be the last thing she’d see. It wasn’t supposed to be that look. She wasn’t supposed to remember Shaw leaving. She preferred to keep the image of a sleeping Shaw, so peaceful and calm as neither ever was.

She heard her wearing her clothes and seconds later wandering around the room searching for her shoes, until she found them and Root felt the knot in her stomach tightening.   
It was time. 

The sound of footsteps walking away penetrated her good ear and hurt it more than Control’s scalpel. But then they stopped before the door opened and a crazy idea got stuck in her mind. Maybe Shaw gave it a second thought, maybe she decided to stay, to come back to bed, to make love to her in the morning just like old times, to pretend that she didn’t feel Root’s accidental touches, to…

Her thoughts were interrupted by soft footsteps, this time though they were approaching and Root fought with herself to hold her eyes closed. The sound kept rising and rising and rising, until it stopped in a place that couldn’t be more close to Root. 

She felt a shadow hovering over her and the very next moment a hand tucking a strand of hair behind her ear while a burning hot breath was caressing her cheek. One second, two, three, four and a whisper sounded right beside her good ear. 

_“Yours. Always.”_

Before Root could realize the words that she might have heard –and might not- the shadow was gone without giving her the time to even open her eyes, the source of heat had been replaced by cold and the mechanical wave that the closing door produced came and rocked her like a mushroom cloud of a fission bomb.

The realization made her eyes flutter open. She had received an answer to her question and it was the one she expected the least. It was redemption and a blow at the same time.

She was wrong!   
Just one night wasn’t enough. It was _not_ enough for her to have Shaw so close and not be able to touch her, kiss her, annoy her...

It was little. _Too little._

Her body instantly jumped like a spring after its release from full stretch and wearing her clothes in a split second she found herself running towards the exit.

And maybe she wasn’t breathing but at the moment she didn’t care. 

She scanned the road with an impatience of a little child waiting for his birthday gift but the small figure she was looking for was nowhere to be found.

Tears clouded her vision as she moved to the end of the road. 

She found it empty again and exhaled almost painfully. 

How much time was this air in her lungs? Was it from the stock exchange or the one that Shaw had breathed out in her mouth? She couldn’t be sure. 

A minute had passed and Root was still standing there, in the middle of an empty road, looking at a turning that Shaw might have taken and might not. 

Maybe Shaw had never walked this road before. Maybe this whole night was a lie. A game of her mind.

Maybe Shaw was indeed dead and she was left living a life with a mind so turbid and broken that she couldn’t tolerate anymore. 

She tried to scream but couldn’t produce voice, or the voice had come out but _she_ couldn’t hear it. 

She couldn’t hear anything, not a bell, not cars passing by, not even her own breath.

She cried out her name again. 

_‘Sameen’_

Nothing.

And again.

_‘Sameen’_

Still, she couldn’t hear her own voice. There was only a buzz in her ear. And desperation. If desperation had a sound, that would be it. The silence of an empty road, a buzz in a deaf ear and somewhere lost in an almost demented mind a whisper; _'Yours'_

Root was about to repeat the name of the woman that she lost six minutes ago -or was it months?- but then she remembered:

_Sound cannot travel through a vacuum._


End file.
